PAINTING IS FINISHED

Wow!!  what a great feeling.  My living room is completely painted in the most luscious color:  Iced Cube Gray.  It is so fresh and clean looking.

My hubby and favorite son-in-law switched the sofa for the love seat and now I love the spaciousness in the room.  I will have the carpet cleaned and then bring in a couple pieces of furniture for quilt storage.

The other thing I am doing is hanging this Modern Mystery Quilt that was designed by Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr.  When I decided to do this mystery quilt project, I planned for it to be a wall hanging in my living room.  It has been finished for quite a while and now it is time to hang it.

My Art Quilt is hanging over the fireplace and it looks so much better on the gray wall.

The wall paint takes on a blue tone at certain times of the day as the natural light changes.

All of the furniture has been moved back in and I absolutely love the "new look".  It makes me feel like I have a new house.

The Love Seat with the coffee table.  This picture makes that coffee table look out of proportion.  LOL   That is a painted silk piece on the wall behind the Love Seat painted by Chris Sandow.

The "Princess Chair".  This is the biggest chair!  When we ordered it from the book at the furniture store, I had no idea how over sized it would be.

My mom's drop-leaf table that my hubby refinished for her and she only used it for about a year before she became ill and lost her battle with cancer.  That was over 25 years ago and I have kept this table and used it in several different rooms in my house.

"Our corner" where we spend most of our time reading and relaxing.  This is where I do a lot of my hand quilting and sewing hexies.

And this is Little Bit's corner where her favorite doggy bed is.  This is where she always runs to when she gets a treat.  It is also very close to the foyer leading to the front door where she must check to see who is walking on the sidewalk.

My next big adventure for this room would be to be able to update the upholstery and maybe even remove the carpet.  But, in the meantime, new paint and some new wall hangings make it interesting.

I almost forgot to mention that we do have a little TV in this room.  Hubby thinks it needs to be replaced with a larger one, but I am very happy with the little one.  The huge one is in the basement "man cave".  I love those two little bird pillows painted by my artist friend, Chris Sandow!  They always make me smile.

Well, as you can see, this is clearly an eclectic room.  At least, that is a nice way of saying it is a "hodgepodge" of styles and moods.

Thanks for stopping by.  If you are in my area, come on over and we will have a cuppa.


                                       -sandi





 

ART QUILT CLASS

My friend, Denise, offered an introductory class to making an Art Quilt.  I signed up.

The first project was a pieced wall hanging using a slice and dice technique.  My project was destined to hang in my family room over the fireplace.

Here is the palette I chose: 

The background fabric is left over from another project of a few years ago.  I love the energy of the different colors.

Then I added the batiks in the range of orange/gold and blue/green.

The first block is a slice and dice.

These were the first week blocks we made.  This technique was fun to work with.



Our second block was a wonky log cabin. 

There were no directions as to how many of each block to make.  We were to choose our own layout and to make as many or as few of each block as we felt we needed.

I am calling this wall hanging  "Which Direction?"

The second project involves rusting some fabric.  I will post that later.


                                                       -sandi


 

ART QUILT CLASS HOMEWORK #1

Homework for first week of Art Quilt Class was to make some slice and insert blocks.  What is fun about a class like this is that you are given very general directions and you can take it where you want to go.

I showed my palette in an earlier post, but I think I will add it here again so you can see what I am working with.

The focus fabric, which is the background, is a woven fabric and the coordinating fabrics are batiks.  There is so much energy in the focus piece.
Our directions for this week were to make 7 blocks using the slash and insert technique that was demonstrated in class.

The finished blocks measure 6".  The inserts should finish at 1/2".  There are no specific directions for just how to locate the inserts within the block.  I could choose to cross them or not; I could put in one or two or more; and I could choose the pairings of the fabrics.  I love this technique and want to use it in the future for a bigger project.
 
I used a directional fabric for my focus fabric and it was not really difficult to slash it and re-sew with the additions.  I thought I might have a little problem, but it worked like a dream!

There seems to be enough shift in the swirls that it "appears" to match back after the strips are added.

I want to make my piece a little larger than the teacher's sample size so I made 10 blocks instead of only 7.  I may need to make more later.  Will just wait to see.

I can hardly wait to do the other blocks.  They are "wonky" log cabin style blocks.

                                      -sandi

ART QUILT CLASS

 I have signed up for an Art Quilt Class to learn some techniques for creating art quilts and for thinking out of the box.  Doing Improv blocks and creating wonky blocks is something I have not done.  This Art Quilt Class is taught by a very talented local fiber artist, Denise Ohlman.  I have admired her work for a couple of years now and was so excited to be able to get into her class to learn some new ways to make quilts.

Here are a few of the pieces of art that she shared in her trunk show today.

 The project that we will be doing first in the class is a small wall hanging using a wonky piecing of a log cabin and a slice and insert block.  This is Denise's project and we are to make ours in a similar way-- but making it our own version by any changes we might like to make.

First assignment is to choose the palette we like.

I think these will give the contrast necessary to get a good quilt.  If it doesn't do the job I will go back to my stash and "shop" some more.

This week I will be making several of the slice and insert blocks.  I will show these later in the week before my next class.

                                      -sandi